Vivimos en la luz.
After reading another five chapters or so of Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami between classes yesterday morning, it came to me that master artists dance with the darkest depths of mankind’s soul, treading the above the firm line between unchanging stability and fleeting stimulation of the subconscious. Is it any wonder that so many of the greats were eccentrics, or even became insane?
I lack the proper words to describe my revelation, and anyways, it’s probably not really mine to begin with. I do not claim to be the master of anything, the founder of any new concept idea. How can I? Even the indescribable tumult of thoughts, emotions, worries, phenomena thrown my way is the same experienced by thousands, perhaps millions and billions of people around the world. I am nothing new, and maybe I am pre-programmed. I don’t feel it, at any rate.
What I am trying to say is this: humanity is defined by darkness. A deep, chilling darkness that none have ever touched— or if they have, they aren’t really men, by the normal standards. We are intrinsically evil, and the black pit deep within us gnaws to be revealed on the surface. It craves to break through our skin, be unleashed from our flimsy containers, and ravish the world around us. For our own sake, we’ve built walls to keep our internal wildernesses contained; impassable, reinforced concrete prisons for our dark humanity. It keeps us stable, and happy, but stolid. All concepts conceivable to the average person are recycled ideas from ages past.
We must applaud the true artists of the world. They’ve broken down those walls, and discourse with their evils as though playing with fire. They hold back chaos by the thinnest of layers, a slightly permeable skin. They shape the raw nothingness into lyrics, sculptures, movements, colors, melodies, novels: the ones that stimulate even into our subconscious. We are drawn to the pieces that resonate of our hidden nature; we stand in awe of them just as we marvel at the endless galaxies and stars. We search for a meaning to life: we find it in the same material that’s hidden within ourselves. It strikes to the deepest crevices of our minds, to the very center of the heart. That is true art. That is what masters create, until one day the darkness bursts through the seams of their all-too perishable containers. Yes, those are the ones engraved in history.
photocredits: notsquared
(Source: seewahchu)
